Bicitaxi

Odds and ends

Lots of catching up to do:

• In Florida’s Pinellas County, there’s a rash of thefts of high-speed boats, and police suspect alien smugglers are behind it. There’s lots of interesting detail in this Tampa Tribune report.

• An independent journalist reports that Cuban authorities have moved some political prisoners arrested in 2003 to prisons closer to their homes. Many of the 75 jailed that year were sent to faraway prisons (Oscar Espinosa Chepe of Havana, for example, was orijinally incarcerated in Guantanamo), compounding the punishment and extending it to family members whose visits were made very difficult.

• Cuba’s tourism ministry says the island now has 46,000 hotel rooms, nearly quadruple the amount available in 1990. One third are in Varadero and one fourth in Havana.

• Challenger Raul Martinez leads Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart by two points in a new Roll Call poll, and the same poll has Senators McCain and Obama tied in that district.

• Dissident leader Martha Beatriz Roque has filed a complaint in Cuban courts, charging that the government acted against Cuba’s constitution by disseminating in Cuban media information that Cuban intelligence agencies had collected about her. (AP story here.) Randy Alonso, of Mesa Redonda fame, is criminally liable, she says. It’s interesting that she is advancing her agenda by working through the government’s own institutions, in this case the judicial system. The Varela Project petition drive, another opposition initiative, was criticized (unwisely, I think) for that very reason.

• Rui Ferreira posts an interview with Naty Revuelta, 82, in the Spanish magazine Yo Dona.

• The Los Angeles Times reports on relations between Russia and Cuba, and consequent worries inside the U.S. government. Judging from the blind quotes in the article, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus view on the exact course the relationship will take.

• Reuters: Cuba, apparently squeezed for hard currency, notified two foreign governments last month that it would skip scheduled debt payments. A Japanese newspaper, cited by Reuters, says Cuba is in arrears on payments to Japan, and Japanese businesses as a result will no longer have accessed to government-backed insurance for their Cuba deals.

• Luis Posada Carriles is back in the news. Honduras’ President says the U.S. ambassador asked him to “give him [Posada] a visa” in January 2006. And an appeals court ruled last month that Posada will have to stand trial after all for immigration fraud; LA Times coverage here, court decision here (pdf) (h/t Mambi Watch).

• The Denver Business Journal reports on the Colorado company, Platt River Associates, accused of an embargo violation. The alleged crime is that after the company sold software to the Spanish oil company Repsol, it provided training to a Repsol employee, and the training session was in violation of the law because the employee brought seismic data from Cuba, and that data was used in the training session. That’s the company’s lawyer’s version.

GOP platform draft released

Here’s the section on Cuba in the draft GOP platform (it’s on page 9 of this 48-page pdf):

The other malignant element in hemispheric affairs is the anachronistic regime in Havana, a mummified relic from the age of totalitarianism, and its buffoonish imitators. We call on the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean to join us in laying the groundwork for a democratic Cuba. Looking to the inevitable day of liberation, we support restrictions on trade with, and travel to, Cuba as a measure of solidarity with the political prisoners and all the oppressed Cuban people. We call for a dedicated platform for transmission of Radio and Television Marti into Cuba and, to prepare for the day when Cuba is free, we support the work of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. We affirm the principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, recognizing the rights of Cubans fleeing Communist tyranny, and support efforts to admit more of them through a safe, legal, orderly process.

My guess is that the “dedicated platform” for Radio/TV Marti means another plane full of transmitters that will fly figure 8’s in the U.S. airspace just south of the Florida Keys, beaming its signals southward. Didn’t we buy one of those babies already, and isn’t it called “Aero Marti?” Do they mean a ship? The S.S. Marti?

As for the statement about the “principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act,” which is fanciful at its core, I wonder why something this obscure would be included in a platform. It could be that there’s a worry that those in the party who want to restrict immigration might want to end the “dry foot” policy, i.e. stop admitting Cubans who arrive without visas and with no claim to refugee/asylee status. As best as I can tell, that would be an unfounded worry.

Then there’s the call to admit more Cuban immigrants through “a safe, legal, and orderly process.” We now admit about 20,000 per year that way, plus about half that amount by other means. I wonder how many immigrant visas a McCain administration would want to grant each year. (The effect would be stabilizing for the “anachronistic regime.”) This is the only call for increased immigration in a platform that mainly treats the subject with seal-the-borders, anti-amnesty language.

Finally, it took me a while to notice through the gonzo rhetoric that this platform language says nothing, in terms of goals or actual policies, about acually bringing democracy to Cuba. There’s no mention of Cuba’s opposition. It anticipates Cuba’s “inevitable day of liberation,” as if that will just come about, dialectically I suppose. The embargo is described as an act of solidarity, not a tool of pressure. Talks with our Latin American and Caribbean neighbors is a nice idea, but the talks would be short because we disagree fundamentally, and they treat Cuba as we do China and Vietnam.

Not much new here.

At Cuaderno de Cuba, some comments from Alejandro Armengol.

"Along the Malecon"

A promising new Cuba blog has appeared, Along the Malecon. It’s written by Tracey Eaton, who served as the Havana correspondent for the Dallas Morning News when it had a bureau open. He now teaches journalism. Tracey is a great reporter and his first few posts give a sense of the stories he will draw upon. Beyond the written word, I hope he’s also generous with his terrific photo archive, built during years of traveling around the island.

Sen. Martinez' "notion"

Florida Senator Mel Martinez was on the Diane Rehm Show on Monday, and gave an interesting interview about his childhood in Cuba and other topics. He took a call from a listener who complained that as co-chair of the Administration’s Cuba commission, Martinez was responsible for the 2004 policy that limits family visits to once every three years, and allows visits to immediate family only. The Senator’s answer:

“The fact of the matter is that a difficult policy was instituted about family travel because, as you may know, a lot of people were coming from Cuba under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans, the only people in the world right now, I think, that can come to the United States, illegally essentially, and then be adjusted as legals just by the mere fact that they touch shore, the wet foot dry foot policy which I don’t frankly agree with. But the Cuban Adjustment Act also says that the reason why that they can do that is because of fear of persecution. Well, those same people who were coming in recent days and recent years were returning to Cuba repeatedly, and so if you arrive and say. “Please harbor me here because if I return to Cuba I have a reasonable fear of being persecuted,” I’m not going to be treated, the Cuban government is going to do something to me. But then in a matter of few months you go back and forth travel back and forth constantly, as so many people are doing, it really makes a sham out of that whole notion.”

Well, it certainly would make a sham of that “notion,” if indeed it existed in the law. But it doesn’t.

In fact, the Cuban Adjustment Act doesn’t even contain the word “persecution.”

By using the phrase “reasonable fear of being persecuted,” Senator Martinez implies that Cubans who come to America are refugees, because that’s what you have to demonstrate to get refugee status. But very few are: 2,922 last year, and 3,143 in 2006. (The only sense in which Cuban immigrants are all refugees is that they are all eligible for benefits that the U.S. government extends to refugees.)

The idea that Cubans who travel to Cuba are breaking a pledge they made to gain entry, is unfounded. When Cubans come without visas, all they need to do to gain entry is to say they are Cuban. Then they are admitted (“paroled”) not because the law requires it, but because U.S. Administrations have decided they want to. The Cuban Adjustment Act only comes into play a year later, when their status is adjusted.

Senator Martinez isn’t the first to use this bottom-of-the-barrel argument. Setting aside its total inaccuracy, it’s beyond me why he and others find it politically compelling. When the Administration’s 2004 family sanctions were announced, the argument was that the travel and remittance restrictions would cut Cuba’s hard currency flows.

I guess that one wore out.

Or maybe it’s hard to look a Cuban American in the eye and say that even though Cuba’s economy is growing, and Chavez is delivering tons of oil to Havana, and other countries are providing aid and credits, it’s all on you, pal – we had to stop you from sending money to your aunt because we’re hastening the end of the dictatorship, and the money you send her will keep Castro in power.

Las Morenas, artists of suspense

“Cuba came from two sets down to stun China” in women’s volleyball this morning, the official Olympics website reported. Cuban media called it a “heart attack-inducing” match, which it certainly was if you were rooting for Las Morenas del Caribe against the reigning Olympic champs.

Cuba went deep in a hole by losing two (18-25, 14-25), won one 25-23, then another 32-30 (the heart attack part, saving about seven match points in a row), and took the fifth 15-13. The Chinese coach took the loss with a very sportsmanlike smile, no doubt admiring the grit and heart those Cuban women displayed. Wow.

[Granma photo.]

Peregrine diplomacy

The Vermont baseball team made it to Cuba, the Bush Administration having set aside the objections of Rep. Diaz-Balart to the issuing of their travel license. Reuters reported on the first day of the trip, where the Peregrines won one and lost one against two Cuban teams. If you follow the link, there’s a gallery with more photos.

[Reuters photo.]

Odds and ends

• Cuba supports the Russian position in the Ossetia/Georgia crisis, citing the “false claim that Georgia is defending its national sovereignty,” and saying that Georgia’s move in Ossetia was made “in complicity with the U.S. government.”

• Cuban human rights monitor Elizardo Sanchez issued his semiannual report on human rights practices. There’s a small drop in the political prisoner population, and the trend toward fewer long-term imprisonments and more short-term detentions (640 in the first half of 2008, 325 in 2007) continues. Reuters covers it here. Cuban Colada links to it here.
  

• If you’re interested in following Cuba’s teams in the Olympics, Granma has a day-by-day roundup of its stories. Here’s one on Cuba’s women’s volleyball team, which beat the United States yesterday and is looking ahead to taking on China. The links to the daily roundup are in the sidebar.
  

The southern route to la Yuma

The Herald’s Cuban Colada has the latest figures on Cubans entering the United States via the Mexican border: 7,267 in fiscal year 2005, 8.639 in 2006, 11,487 in 2007, and 8.829 in 2008, with two months left in the fiscal year, which ends September 30. By comparison, the United States admits about 20,000 Cubans annually, in various visa categories, through the U.S. consulate in Havana.

Cuba and Mexico have been negotiating a migration accord, and according to La Jornada, talks will resume this month with an eye to signing an agreement in September. An apparent sticking point, the article says, has to do with repatriation: Cuba is reportedly willing to accept those that arrive in Mexico directly from Cuba, but is not willing to accept those that travel to Mexico from third countries. The article says that Cubans arriving from third countries are “the largest part of the flow of illegal migrants from the island.”

Part of the flow of Cuban migrants to the United States, both through Mexico and directly across the Straits, involves smuggling operations, This Herald story tells how the Feds are cracking down on these operations in south Florida. And it shows how the smugglers operate; in one case, smugglers demanded payment from a Miami family before they would turn over the relatives they had brought from Cuba. They now face charges for both alien smuggling and hostage taking.

Endgame

Odds and ends

• A week after announcing a trip to Cuba where he sought a meeting with Raul Castro, Senator Specter announces that it won’t happen; he’s told that there was not sufficient time to arrange his visit.

• The Herald reports today on Lt. Col. Simmons’ allegations, with a sidebar on Simmons and the other players in the story.

• Dayron Robles, a 110-meter hurdler on the Cuban Olympic team, joins other athletes signing a letter to Chinese President Hu calling on China to respect human rights and “to ensure that human rights defenders are no longer intimidated or imprisoned.” (H/t Penultimos Dias)

• Vermont kids head to Cuba tomorrow to play baseball.

The smears continue

Lt. Col. Chris Simmons was on the Babalu Radio Hour last night, and the first thing that his interview made clear is that he doesn’t like the way his credentials and job history are being discussed.

“There has been some confusion caused intentionally by a small cabal of misguided but enthusiastic others,” he said, who are trying to “cast aspersions.”

Well.

He doesn’t like the word “former,” but that’s what I was told when I called a Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman: “former employee.” It turns out he worked there until last December. He is now an Army reservist, on active duty, working as an intelligence officer. He says his “area of specialty is counterintelligence,” although from the way he phrased his answer, it sounds like he’s not assigned to counterintelligence duties now. From the bio on his website, it seems he spent eight years working on Cuba matters, ending in 2004. And in a stern “legal” section of his website, he warns his that his readers “should neither rely nor act upon any of the information contained in these pages and, if you choose to do so, it will be entirely at your own risk.” Fair enough.

It would never occur to me to question whether Simmons has spent a career in intelligence; that’s obviously the case. (His interview includes lots of interesting nuggets, about Cuba’s signals intelligence capabilities and other matters.)

His status in the government arouses curiosity because it has been reported about a dozen different ways in news articles, and because – as would occur to most intelligence professionals – it is rare in our country that anyone in our government who does not exercise prosecutorial power, would step out to accuse Americans of specific crimes.

Which Simmons did again last night, with gusto.

So here’s the deal: “I welcome the opportunity,” Simmons says, to back up his charges, which he says are based on a professor’s articles, and by his talks with former Cuban intelligence operatives. If people feel then have been defamed, they can “take me to civil court, sue me for defamation, and I will parade my evidence in front of the world.”

He “can’t speak for” the Justice Department, Simmons says, but he does exactly that: “And the court case will go from civil case to a criminal case very quickly, and the people accused will find themselves being charged by the government” for espionage, working as an unregistered foreign agent, or tax evasion if they were paid by the Cuban government and did not declare that income.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Simmons says. “If you don’t believe me, take me to court and make me prove it.” Until then, he will presumably keep his notes of conversations with Cuban defectors to himself. Meanwhile, we should defer to his judgment, because according to Simmons, “when it comes to intelligence issues those areas are best left to counterintelligence officers.”

How is this anything other than a smear campaign carried out by a uniformed officer of our military?

[Discussion of Simmons’ appearance on A Mano Limpia last week is here.]

Democratic platform draft released

The draft of the 2008 Democratic Party platform has been released, and includes the following section on Latin America and the Caribbean:

Recommit to an Alliance of the Americas

We recognize that the security and prosperity of the United States is fundamentally tied to the future of the Americas. We believe that in the 21st century, the U.S. must treat Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean as full partners, just as our neighbors to the south should reject the bombast of authoritarian bullies. An alliance of the Americas will only succeed if it is founded on the bedrock of mutual respect and works to advance democracy, opportunity and security from the bottom- up. We must turn the page on the arrogance in Washington and the anti-Americanism across the region that stands in the way of progress. We must work with close partners like Mexico, Brazil and Colombia on issues like ending the drug trade, fighting poverty and inequality, and immigration. And we must build ties to the people of Cuba and help advance their liberty by allowing unlimited family visits and remittances to the island, while presenting the Cuban regime with a clear choice: if it takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the unconditional release of all political prisoners, we will be prepared to take steps to begin normalizing relations.

Odds and ends

• Lt. Col. Simmons didn’t impress former Cuban political prisoner Nicolas Perez, who wrote in today’s El Nuevo Herald. He can’t quite figure Simmons out, and wonders if he is, among other things, settling scores between federal agencies, trying “irresponsibly to promote his book,” or promoting “an electoral agenda.” He says Simmons claims there are Cuban agents among the staff of Miami’s Versailles restaurant, something I had missed. Regarding Simmons’ charges against Marifeli Perez-Stable, Perez asks why he singles her out “in this Miami of a million inhabitants, where 950,000 sympathized and cooperated with the Cuban revolution,” and where people who were “until yesterday” ministers, military officers, functionaries, and torturers in Cuba, are on the radio and television constantly.

• Lincoln, call your office: Alabama’s baseball team heads to Cuba in mid-December to play three games.

• The Czech Republic, one of the few reliable partners of the Bush Cuba policy, broke ranks in June. Now, Costa Rica: President Arias calls on the United States to take the first step toward normalized relations by returning the naval base at Guantanamo to Cuba.

• The UN Human Rights Council picks its new president, Miguel Alfonso Martinez, a Cuban law professor and former foreign ministry spokesman. [Correction: the post is president of an advisory committee, not of the council itself.]

Sugar rebound

Reuters reports that Cuba’s sugar industry is reporting increased production of sugar and other products for the first time since the industry’s downsizing a few years ago. That includes alcohol production – but a ministry official who spoke to reporters was not bullish about “ethanol” and would not mention the word. I wonder if there’s an area of clearer comparative advantage for Cuba’s economy that is off limits for political reasons.

[Photo of a sugar mill in Jovellanos, in the process of dismantling.]

Plaza de la Catedral

Odds and ends

• El Nuevo Herald reports that a passenger bound for Cuba was nabbed by federal agents in the Miami airport last March with $16,738 in his carry-on bag. He said the envelope came from a travel agent, for delivery to her mother in Cuba.

• South Florida Daily Blog looks at the status of former DIA employee, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons.

• A very interesting post at Miami & Beyond on what Solzhenitsyn meant to someone growing up in Cuba.

• The Cuba Transition Project at the University of Miami announces that two videoconferences with Cuban dissidents and independent journalists are available for viewing on its website, under “New/Relevant.” It would be nice if the U.S. Interests Section would put the rest of its videoconferences on its website, rather than keep them in the closed circle of U.S. officials, Cuban participants, and Cuban spooks who tuned in too.

Lunch (with fly)

The bear in the palm trees

What is going on in Russia’s relationship with Cuba?

Clearly, NATO expansion, and now U.S. plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses in Europe, have not made Moscow happy. So we’re seeing a variety of signals that carry the same message: You play on our periphery, we’ll play on yours.

Some of the signals have fizzed out. The talk of Russian long-range bombers in Cuba has been dismissed by the Russian defense ministry, and by the newspaper that published it in the first place. (And what military sense would it make anyway to have long-range bombers sitting on runways so close to the United States?)

But there are other signals, such as these in a Pravda story yesterday, from Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences:

“It is an open secret that the West has been establishing a buffer zone around Russia during the recent years, getting European, Baltic states, Ukraine and the Caucasus involved in the process. The expansion of the Russian military presence abroad, particularly in Cuba, could become a response to US-led activities.”

In the same article, Ivashov discussed the visit of Russian security council official Nikolai Patrushev to Cuba (which Ivashov called “the island of freedom”) and got more specific:

“There are convenient bays for reconnaissance and battleships and a network of so-called forward staging posts in Cuba. We can resume the operation of the radar center in Lourdes upon the agreement of the Cuban administration. A shipment of new radar equipment will be necessary for it, though.”

What does Cuba think of all this? According to Russian media, not much. Cuban Colada notes a Russian media report that the Castro brothers are not pleased with talk of Russian military moves in Cuba, without their being consulted. The same report quotes an unnamed Cuban official saying Havana is “unlikely to revive military cooperation.”

The Bush Administration, meanwhile, continues to react coolly. Here’s the State Department spokesman in yesterday’s briefing: “We don’t see dealing with the Cuban Government as particularly productive. However, we understand that other countries will have bilateral relations as they seem fit.”

So what does Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin mean when he says, “We need to rebuild position in Cuba and other countries?” For now, the two sides are talking in public about economic and political relations, as this Granma article outlines. And the Russians even talked about taking into account Cuba’s views on Latin America as it develops its own commercial relations, developing “a sort of tripartite cooperation,” the Russian Vice President said in Havana.

One can’t dismiss the military talk lightly. But my guess is that the Russians’ loud talk is designed to make a political point to Washington – and in a year’s time, we will see Russia more involved in Cuba’s economy, based on commercial interests and not a new aid/subsidy relationship.

And my guess is that the military talk will remain just talk.

For Cuba to admit a new Russian military presence would be to change radically the strategy behind its step-by-step renovation of its diplomatic relationships, from Europe to the Vatican to Brazil and China. That strategy has brought political and economic benefits, it promises reduced dependence on Venezuela, and it conveniently spotlights the marginal position the United States holds in the Cuba equation today.

It’s hard to imagine a cost-benefit equation that would cause Havana to abandon that strategy. Russia is not offering handouts, certainly nothing approaching the Soviet subsidy that amounted to about a fourth of Cuba’s national income. Many Cubans, in any event, look on the Soviet period as one of dependence, something they would like to leave behind.

The United States is far from the determining factor in any of this, except for the fact that our diplomatic absence in a country so close creates a space that others – white hats, black hats, everyone in between – then occupy. But it’s interesting to ask whether, if the United States were engaged in even modest diplomacy with Cuba, this Russian gambit would be occurring at all.

Some good reading on this topic from The National Interest and Financial Times.

Odds and ends

• Someone should tell Rui Ferreira and his graphics editor that Lt. Col. Simmons’ accusations are NOT FUNNY.

• Mary O’Grady in The Wall Street Journal, on Hector Palacios and Gisela Delgado as they prepare to return to Cuba.

• Reuters: Eight American students finished a free medical education at the Latin American Medical School in Havana, and graduated last weekend.

• Why has Granma been running a 1973 Fidel speech, and why did Raul dwell on it in his July 26 speech? Brian Latell takes a stab at an answer in a Herald op-ed.

Vermont-Florida rhubarb

“A Florida congressman has launched a war against baseball. Apple pie may be next.” That’s a quote from “Play Ball,” an editorial in The Rutland Herald, about Congressman Diaz-Balart’s opposition to a Vermont baseball team’s trip to Cuba.

Vermont’s Senator Leahy says the Congressman should “pick on someone his own size.”

It’s not just the ball games, it’s the symbolism, Congressman Diaz-Balart argues: “Sporting events may be interpreted as diplomatic gestures even when they are not meant to be.”

A Herald columnist blithely ignores the strategic issues, writing that he supports the trip and has “arranged with one of the coaches to smuggle me back a box of Cohiba Esplendidos.”

The players are 11 and 12 years old. They are scheduled to depart next Saturday.

[Photo: a weekend ballgame in Havana province, high school age players.]

Cuatro Caminos